Author:
Smith, Timothy B., 1974- author.
ImprintLawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2023]
Descriptionxxiii, 526 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Note:Vicksburg not by the book -- "We were out-generaled some way" -- "Can the enemy intend another attempt to approach Vicksburg?" -- "We have disposed of this tough little nut" -- "The work of changing the channel of the Mississippi" -- "But Grant is on two other projects" -- "The prospect of opening the pass is encouraging" -- "The Yankee boats are here" -- "The enemy press me on all sides" -- "We intend to take the boats" -- "This is the only move I now see as practicable" -- "They are about to execute some plan" -- "Attracting attention from Grant" -- "We land the Army in the morning" -- "But I was on dry ground."
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 475-508) and index.
Note:"In Bayou Battles for Vicksburg, the third in sequence but fourth-published volume in his five-volume history of the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War, Tim Smith chronicles the third through seventh attempts by Ulysses S. Grant to capture the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The accepted strategy up to this point [in the] war was aligned with the principles of the Swiss theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini, whose work was taught at West Point, where commanders on both sides of the conflict had been educated. But Jomini didn't have anything to say about creeks, rivers, and bayous in a subtropical swamp environment. Moreover, Jomini emphasized secure supply lines and a slow, steady, unified approach to a target such as Vicksburg. Grant threw out the book with a bold, and ultimately successful, plan to divide his forces to accomplish multiple goals and to confuse the enemy by cutting levies, flooding whole sections of watersheds, and bypassing strongholds by digging canals far around them, thus avoiding a direct approach. Once Grant finally reached the high, dry ground on the east side of the Mississippi River on May 1, the next phase began: the inland overland campaign began, and it continued for the next seventeen days. This will be covered in the next, and last, in the series of Smith's Vicksburg volumes."-- Provided by publisher.
